A place for a tired old woman to try to figure things out so that the world makes a bit of sense.

Tuesday, November 10, 2009

Holy Crap Still Stinks

Talk about your abominations...

Congressman Stupak's (D, Misogyny) amendment to the House healthcare reform bill, which would essentially foreclose insurance coverage for abortions, is proof again that women continue to be second (perhaps even third) class citizens. The amendment, which purported to conform health care policy with that earlier abomination, the Hyde Amendment, actually goes far beyond it. The Hyde Amendment foreclosed the use of government money for abortions in certain government programs. This amendment will have the effect of foreclosing even insurance plans with no government funds involved from refusing to pay for a legal medical procedure.

When the House narrowly passed the health care reform bill on Saturday night, it came with a steep price for women’s reproductive rights. Under pressure from anti-abortion Democrats and the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, lawmakers added language that would prevent millions of Americans from buying insurance that covers abortions — even if they use their own money.

The restrictions would fall on women eligible to buy coverage on new health insurance exchanges. They are a sharp departure from current practice, an infringement of a woman’s right to get a legal medical procedure and an unjustified intrusion by Congress into decisions best made by patients and doctors. [Emphasis added]

Look, I know some people think abortion is an act of murder. To them I say (using bumper-sticker wisdom), "Fine, then don't have one." I'd even go further and promise to do everything I can to make certain that forced abortions are outlawed. Just leave the rest of us alone when it comes to some private and deeply painful decisions regarding our bodies and our lives. That seems fair to me.

And to the Unites States Conference of Catholic Bishops I say, "Get the fuck out of my government and off of my body."

And to the slime in the House of Representatives who voted for this amendment, and we know who you are, I say, "Here's a quarter: get a clue." I recognize that a detailed knowledge of US history and Supreme Court decisions is not a prerequisite for elected office (although it probably should be), but it seems to me that a basic familiarity with the concepts of separation of church and state and basic civil rights guaranteed by the Constitution, among them the right to privacy, would be helpful in doing a decent job in Congress.

3 Comments:

Got that right. Once again, their strangely-wired brains come up with a variant of Thee Not Me, i.e., We Don't Want Government Interference In Our Lives, But Government Interference In Someone Else's Life Is Okay.